I've finally gotten it together enough to make plane reservations for Australia. It's taken a longer time than I thought it would, partially due to my own foot dragging but also partially due to slow steps by others.
I'll back up a few years and just say that I've spent some time exploring back country, off road places in the Western US. I can't say I'm at all expert but I've enjoyed it a lot.
I started with a car and tent. Something that Jary and I did from time to time over the years. But eventually I "upgraded" to using my old (2001) Ford Ranger. It had the advantage of higher clearance and four wheel drive. And I figured out how to get a mattress and all of the gear that I thought I really needed into the bed, under the topper. After one great trip along the Arizona/Mexico border I was so disgusted with messing with ice in my cooler that I bought a 12 volt cooler and lithium ion battery that I could fit in behind the passenger's seat. That was a huge improvement for my diet and general convenience. After several trips and a visit to the Overland Expo in Flagstaff, I decided to take this further. About a year ago I decided that I was going to Overland Australia. Lots of watching YouTube videos, looking at maps, and soul searching later I'm now ready to go.
Several people warned me that to do what I wanted and to have a vehicle that would satisfy my desires was going to take some doing. I went to Australia in February and purchased a Series 78 Land Cruiser (Troopy) that was partially outfitted for the kind of trip I'm anticipating. Live and learn!! I camped in it for about 3 weeks and it wasn't close to what I wanted. I left it with a company called Project Overlander in the far suburbs of Sydney for a lot of additional outfitting. Probably the biggest thing that I learned is that in Australia you'd better not exceed the gross vehicle mass rating for your vehicle. Not only can you get busted but your insurance isn't any good. The GVM upgrade for my Troopy really raised the price of the build.
Months later and lots of dollars to Project Overlander and the final completion of projects and preparations in Santa Fe I'm ready to go. So, here I am in Santa Fe where I really
do love the living conditions. Getting ready to "rough it" all over Australia for a year or so. It's pretty exciting to think about having no fixed address for a while. I don't know if it's for everyone but: There's huge satisfaction to being able to downsize a lot of the crap that I've owned. I won't say it was easy and there were weeks when I just didn't get anything done because of the difficulty of deciding what to do with things. This is all manufactured difficulty. I've kept a lot more shit than I should have. And I'm probably taking a lot more with me than I'll ever use. I just think back to earlier times when I owned less, needed less, and was perfectly happy that way. So, in some ways it's a chance to turn a leaf. Maybe I'm only half turning the leaf. You can see that this Troopy isn't really roughing it!!
And this is a picture before the final upgrades. I guess I'll have to spend some time in a couple of weeks to take some extensive photos or even a video so I can show off all of the conveniences in the Troopy build.
There have been a number of things that have frustrated me in the process and some that have gone really well. Maybe the most frustrating has been my own procrastination. But the local power company, PNM, might even beat that out. I just put in a big solar system and they started by having so many weird restrictions that I couldn't do what I wanted and still get Net Metering. You'll have to look that up. And then they took forever to approve the install. I think it took the City of Santa Fe about 2 or 3 days after the solar install was complete to come and inspect and approve. It took PNM about six weeks. Positive Energy has put up with my idiosyncracies, fortunately. But I had to twist their arms to get batteries that weren't manufactured by Tesla. You don't want to hear all of my reasons.
Now the thing that amazed me for its simplicity was the ability to set things up to vote absentee. I'll do a mini-rant here: All of the bullshit about voter fraud be damned. If you are an American living overseas you can actually vote online!! There are some minor hoops to jump through but I was sure that Republican bitching was going to make it really hard. Well, New Mexico is pretty thoroughly Democratic but this is actually in Federal Law. It took me all of about 15 minutes in the County Clerk's office to set it all up. Ask me after November 5 how I feel about it. But if I didn't vote in this election I'm sure that the ghosts of my father and Jary would haunt me for the rest of my life. So, what a relief that was.
OK, this will be it until after a few airports and a 15 hour flight (LA to Sydney).
